TITLE: It's Okay To Say, "I Don't Know."  Even Nobel Laureates Do It.
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: December 26, 2018  2:44 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
 I ran across two great examples of humility by Nobel
 Prize-winning economists in recent conversations with
 Tyler Cowen.
 
 When asked, "Should China and Japan move to romanized
 script?",
<A HREF="https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/paul-romer-tyler-cowen-economics-education-growth-979315047773">
   Paul Romer said</A>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 I basically don't know the answer to that question.
 But I'll use that as a way to talk about something
 else ...
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 Romer could have speculated or pontificated; instead,
 he acknowledged that he didn't know the answer and
 pivoted the conversation to a related topic he had
 thought about (reforming spelling in English, for
 which he offered an interesting
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2018-12.html#e2018-12-24T14_55_03.htm">
   computational solution</A>).
 By shifting the topic, Romer added value to the
 conversation without pretending that any answer he
 could give to the original question would have more
 value than as speculation.

 A couple of months ago, Cowen sat with
<A HREF="https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/tyler-cowen-paul-krugman-economics-bipartisanship-politics-254dcee15b98">
   Paul Krugman</A>.
 When asked whether he would consider a "single land
 tax" as a way to encourage a more active and more
 equitable economy, Krugman responded:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 I just haven't done my homework on that.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 ... and left it there.  To his credit, Cowen did
 not press for an uninformed answer; he moved on
 to another question.

 I love the attitude that Krugman and Romer adopt
 and really like Krugman's specific answer, which
 echoed his response to another question earlier in
 the conversation.  We need more people answering
 questions this way, more often and in more
 circumstances.

 Such restraint is probably even more important in
 the case of Nobel laureates.  If Romer and Klugman
 choose to speculate on a topic, a lot of people
 will pay attention, even if it is a topic they
 know little about.  We might learn something from
 their speculations, but we might also forget that
 they are only uninformed speculation.

 I think what I like best about these answers is the
 example that Romer and Klugman set for the rest of
 us: It's okay to say, "I don't know."  If you have
 not done the homework needed to offer an informed
 answer, it's often best to say so and move on to
 something you're better prepared to discuss.
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